Spreading the message of Gita

Asif — then in his 30s — began questioning the philosophy of life. “I had grown up on my great grandfather,Sulaiman Salman’s writings on the Gita,the Upanishads,the Vedas and other spiritual and religious texts.” Sulaiman Salman,who lived in pre-Partition India in the 1920s,was a biographer of Prophet Muhammad,scholar of comparative religious studies and a researcher of Islamic history .

Asif’s parents belonged to Pakistan as they migrated post-1947. But,following a stint in the UK,his parents moved to London permanently,and it was in England that Asif was born. Brought up in the UK,with an insatiable wanderlust and an incorrigible soul searching for answers,Asif — inspired by his great grandfather’s writings — began researching on the Gita and enrolled himself at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in London for

Sanskrit classes.

Ask him when he first heard of the term ‘Gita’? He says,“I wouldn’t remember where exactly. It could have been in an article or in a conversation or in one of those Bollywood movies where one often hears,“Main Gita ki saugandh khakar kehta hoon”. He adds,“Each time I touch the Gita,it is as if I am introduced to it for the first time”.

But weren’t people surprised at his interest in Hindu religious scriptures? Pat comes his reply: “Pre-1947 literature and culture belongs to me as much as it belongs to any Indian. I am a Pakistani,an Indian and a Britisher” he says rather effervescently. He continues: “I would like to quote from one of my favourite teachers,Swami Venkateshananda,who wrote: The quintessence of tolerance with love is to speak in tongues of all faiths,hold in the heart the truth of all faith,see all faiths in the face of humanity.”

Asif adds,“I have had an enormous interest in Dara Shikoh’s writings.” And referring to one of them,quotes,“All great religions of the world are like great oceans whose waters mingle,flowing from one source to the other.”

“To me this means,that the Quran,the Bible,the Gita and other spiritual texts are books on the same subject,kept on the same shelf of the same library,how could anyone use one to discriminate against the other?” It is this belief that led Asif to give lectures on the Gita and other Hindu spiritual texts,including the Upanishads,as part of a group spread across continents. “My colleagues and friends around the world are part of this group where we meet up quite often to discuss any reflections on each other’s interpretations on texts,” he says.

In Pakistan,he has dedicated time to give lectures on Hindu religious texts in Lahore and Karachi “and the response has been overwhelming”. Asif,a gender advisor with the UN in Islamabad,has been living in Pakistan for the past six years with his wife and two children. “This has been my longest stay in this country.”

Asif has published books and translated Hindu texts into Persian and Urdu. “I have translated Jaydev’s Gita Govinda into Urdu and Persian which have been well received,”

he says.

He says,the Gita’s profoundity is immense and it is not a book of dos and don’ts,but a book of reflections. “I as a counselor have to make sure I distance myself from people who come to me for advice. I can’t let them be morbidly dependent on me as they will never be able to walk on their own feet,” he says.

Asif is faced not just with the problems of individuals but with the difficult questions that confront Pakistan today. “With Pakistan in the throes of an unprecedented humanitarian crisis — natural disaster,political unrest,conflict in the northwest frontier region,perpetually spiralling security concerns — one needs to find one’s secret island of peace and the will to continue living purposefully in the healing resonance of timeless,primordial spiritual whisperings of sacred texts such as the Gita.”